NIST Special Publication 1240

Data, Information, and Tools Needed
for Community Resilience Planningand Decision-Making
Therese McAllister
Christopher Clavin
Bruce Ellingwood
John van de Lindt
David Mizzen
Francis LavelleThis publication is available free of charge from:https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

NIST Special Publication 1240

Data, Information, and Tools Needed
for Community Resilience Planningand Decision-Making
Therese McAllister
Christopher Clavin
Bruce Ellingwood
John van de Lindt
David Mizzen
Francis LavelleThis publication is available free of charge from:https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

September 2019

U.S. Department of Commerce
Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., Secretary
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Walter Copan, NIST Director and Undersecretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology

Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in thisdocument in order to describe an experimental procedure or concept adequately.
Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that theentities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose.

National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 1240
Natl. Inst. Stand. Technol. Spec. Publ. 1240, 60 pages (September 2019)
CODEN: NSPUE2This publication is available free of charge from:https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

Acknowledgements
The extensive input and support of the steering committee members who assisted with planning the October
25-26, 2018 workshop by identifying important topics based on their individual experience working with
communities, identifying workshop speakers, and engaging their stakeholders was invaluable.
Donna Boyce, NIST Community Resilience Fellow
Shannon Burke, American Planning Association (APA)
Susanne DesRoches, New York City Mayor’s Office
Elizabeth Kellar, International City/County Management Association (ICMA)
Linda Langston, National Association of Counties (NACo)
Eric Letvin, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Cooper Martin, National League of Cities (NLC)
Chris Poland, NIST Community Resilience Fellow
Brett Schwartz, National Association of Development Organizations (NADO)Don Scott, PCS Structural Solutions
Leslie Wollack, National Association of Regional Councils (NARC)
The speakers at the October 25-26, 2018 workshop highlighted their ongoing efforts by sharing theirexperiences planning for and recovering from hazard events and addressing data, information, and toolsthat are needed to make communities more resilient.
Jane Cage, InsightFive, Citizens Advisory Recovery Team, Joplin, MO
Scott Davis, SGD Urban Solutions, Washington, DC
Sandi Fowler, City of Cedar Rapid, IA
Edward Fratto, Northeast States Emergency Consortium, Boston, MA
Joshua Ghaffari, Office of Planning, Washington, DC
Gerry Horak, Mayor Pro Tem, Fort Collins, CO
Justin Kates, City of Nashua, NH
Sean McGlynn, City of Santa Rosa, CA
Jay Wilson, Clackamas County, OR
Janet Zeis, Chester County, PA
The participants in the October 25-26, 2018 workshop brought a wealth of experience and information.
Their knowledge and experience with data, information, and tools related to community resilience planningand decision-making is greatly appreciated. The workshop and this report benefited significantly from thediverse group of participants, whose affiliations are listed on the following page.
The careful review and contributions by Juan Fung, Shane Crawford, Jason Averill, Jennifer Helgeson,
Maria Dillard, Jarrod Loerzel are gratefully acknowledged, as well as those who participated in theworkshop discussion sessions and ensured that they were documented: Andre Barbosa, Shane Crawford,
Maria Dillard, Juan Fung, Ken Harrison, Jennifer Helgeson, Frank Lavelle, Hussam Mahmoud, LaurenMudd, and Peter Vickery.

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October 25-26, 2018 Workshop Participant Affiliations
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100 Resilient Cities
AIR Worldwide
American Institute of Architects
American Planning Association
Argonne National Laboratory
Applied Research Associates, Inc.
Cedar Rapids, IA
AT&T
Bonneville Power Administration
Boulder, COCenter for NYC Neighborhoods
Chester County, PA
Clackamas County, OR
Colorado State University, CO
Delaware Air National Guard
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
Dewberry
Department of Homeland Security, National Risk
Management Center
Dubuque, IA
Howard County, MD
LEED for Cities & Communities
Economic Development Agency, Economic
Recovery and Resilience
Energetics
Ernst & Young
Facility Engineering Associates, LLP
Federal Emergency Management Agency
FederalEmergency
Management
Agency,Community Capacity Building
Fort Collins, COGlobal Research InstituteHillsborough County, FL
Idaho National Lab
InsightFive
Institute for Building Technology and Safety
Institute for Defense Analysis, Science andTechnology Policy InstituteInsurance Institute for Business & Home Safety
International City/County Management Association
International Organization for Standardization

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Larimer County, CO
LeadersLink
Louisiana Office of Recovery
Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
Miami, FL
Michael Baker
Mid-America Regional Council
Milwaukee, WI
Nashua, NH
National Association of Counties
National Academies
National Association of Regional Councils
National Institute of Building Sciences
New York City Department of Information
Technology and Telecommunications
National Fire Protection Association
National Institute of Standards and Technology
National League of Cities
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Office for Coastal Management
Northeast States Emergency Consortium
Oklahoma State University
PCS Solutions
Pew Charitable Trust
PPC
Resilient Virginia
Santa Rosa, CA
SEFT Consulting GroupSGD Urban Solutions, LLC / RAND Corp.
Stanford University
State of Louisiana Office of Community
Development
Talus Analytics
Texas A&M University
Transportation Research Board
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of Florida
Urban Sustainability Directors Network
Walden University
Washington, DC, Office of Planning
Xylem Inc
Zurich Services Corporation

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

Table of Contents
Executive Summary .......................................................................................................................51.

Introduction ........................................................................................................................8
1.1.

Stakeholder Workshop ...................................................................................................8

1.2.

Report Development and Organization .........................................................................92.

Community Resilience Goals and Metrics .....................................................................11
2.1.

Current Approaches .....................................................................................................11

2.2.

Issues in Practice ..........................................................................................................13

2.3.

Gaps and Needs............................................................................................................14

3.

Data and Information ......................................................................................................15
3.1.

Current Approaches .....................................................................................................15

3.2.

Issues in Practice ..........................................................................................................16

3.3.

Gaps and Needs............................................................................................................17

4.

Community Resilience Tools...........................................................................................19
4.1.

Current Approaches .....................................................................................................19

4.2.

Issues in Practice ..........................................................................................................20

4.3.

Gaps and Needs............................................................................................................21

5.

Community Resilience Planning.....................................................................................24
5.1.

Current Approaches .....................................................................................................24

5.2.

Issues in Practice ..........................................................................................................27

5.3.

Gaps and Needs............................................................................................................28

6.

Funding Sources and Economic Decision-Support.......................................................29
6.1.

Current Approaches .....................................................................................................29

6.2.

Issues in Practice ..........................................................................................................30

6.3.

Gaps and Needs............................................................................................................31

7.

8.

Communication with Stakeholders ................................................................................33
7.1.

Current Approaches .....................................................................................................33

7.2.

Issues in Practice ..........................................................................................................34

7.3.

Gaps and Needs............................................................................................................35
Summary and Potential Next Steps ................................................................................37

Glossary of Acronyms..................................................................................................................40
References .....................................................................................................................................433

Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

Appendix 1. Definitions ...............................................................................................................49
Appendix 2. Examples of Data Sources Discussed in Workshop ............................................52
Appendix 3. Examples of Current Publicly Available Community Resilience Tools ............54
Appendix 4. Examples of Funding Programs ...........................................................................56
List of Tables
Table 2-1. Example of Community Resilience Goals and Indicators ......................................................... 12
Table 7-1. Example of Ways to Communicate the Probability of Hazard Occurrence .............................. 36
List of Figures
Figure E-1. Summary of Potential Next Steps Identified in the Report........................................................ 7
Figure 4-1. GIS can be used to Communicate Co-Located System Interactions Graphically at theCommunity Level ....................................................................................................................................... 22

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

Executive Summary
Many communities across the United States are seeking the ability to prepare for, adapt to changing
conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from the effects of natural hazard events by actively
developing plans to achieve their resilience goals. The term community refers to a place designated bygeographical boundaries under the jurisdiction of a common governance structure, such as a town, city, or
county. It is within these communities that people live, work, play, build their futures, and develop goals
and plans.
Community resilience planning requires methods to assess and measure a community’s current resiliencelevel and the risks and benefits of plans for its social and economic institutions and physical systems. The
prioritization and implementation of resilience improvement projects requires data and information to fully
understand and effectively evaluate project alternatives, support investment decisions, and assess theoutcomes of projects as they are implemented and completed. These activities also require resources tocollaborate and communicate with stakeholders and to identify, process, and analyze data with tools froma variety of sources and disciplines.
Research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Center for Risk-Based
Community Resilience Planning (Center) supports community resilience planning and risk-informed
decision-support for mitigating the impacts of natural hazards. To this end, NIST and the Center organizeda workshop on community resilience data, information, and tools for community resilience planning anddecision-making. The October 2018 workshop aimed to: (1) gain an improved understanding ofcommunities’ resilience decision-making processes, (2) identify issues associated with obtaining data andinformation, (3) identify common data needs for the development and use of community-focused tools, (4)identify analysis tools currently used to support planning and decision-making by communities, and (5)develop potential actions to address the issues and needs. Based upon input from the community,
practitioner, academic, and government stakeholders received in the workshop and research by NIST and
the Center, this report summarizes the current approaches, issues, and gaps in resilience data, informationand tools that help communities to plan and implement resilience strategies.
Key Findings
Key findings for potential next steps to advance data, information, and tools for community resilience aresummarized below and in Figure E-1.
1. Communities seek practical approaches and methods to develop resilience plans,communicate with stakeholders, and track progress.
Efforts to develop community resilience plans are often led by community officials, who are responsible
for considering the social, economic, physical, and natural systems within a community, understanding theeffects of natural hazards on these systems, and obtaining input from and communicating with community
members. Data for buildings, infrastructure systems, social and economic institutions, and community
members for the periods before, during, and after a hazard event are essential for performing comprehensive
community assessments and developing plans. Obtaining input from and communicating resilience goals
and strategies to community stakeholders is a significant challenge given the range of interests andperspectives across a community.
Resilience leaders seek practical, scientifically-grounded methods and tools to ensure they are addressing
community goals and recommending technically appropriate actions in the resilience plans. Essential
elements for a standard approach include establishing resilience goals, identifying vulnerabilities,
prioritizing projects, and tracking progress towards resilience goals. Another significant challenge is
integrating the different geographic and time scales across data sources in models or tools. Measuringresilience progress requires a core set of indicators and metrics to assess the performance of community
systems before and after a natural hazard event. Additionally, advances in resilience leadership training, as

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well as visualizing and communicating risks and benefits to community leaders, residents, and businesses,
are critical to community understanding and willingness to adopt and implement resilience strategies.
2. Development of resilience data standards would improve the accessibility of data and tool
development for communities, practitioners, and researchers.
Data and information resources and community technical capabilities are the foundation of analyses andassessments informing resilience plan development. While the increasing set of data sources on the social,economic, and physical dimensions of communities is helpful, communities often must invest significant
resources and time to integrate multiple external data sources with their own information technology andmanagement systems for planning, analyses, and assessments. In addition to data sources, communities
seek resilience tools that aid planning efforts in two general categories: (1) analytical tools to characterizehazard exposure and support vulnerability assessment, and (2) decision-support and visualization tools toevaluate trade-offs, support implementation decisions, and enhance community stakeholder engagement.
Efforts are needed to increase the discoverability and accessibility of resilience data, to help communities
understand appropriate uses of data for resilience planning, to increase compatibility with community
software platforms and tools, and to standardize data to facilitate the application for disaster assistance fromfederal agencies and other funding sources. The development of common community resilience data
standards and best practices for curation and dissemination of validated data and tools would reduce thetechnical burden on communities. Community resilience tools will benefit from engagement andcollaboration between end-users and tool developers to align the technical requirements of analytical tools
to community decision-support needs, including visualization of results for communication.
3. Advancing plan implementation requires identifying optimal funding opportunities andevaluating the economic benefits and costs of resilience projects.
Once a resilience plan has been published, communities face the hurdles associated with plan
implementation. Communities seek to articulate the business case and benefits before and after hazard
events for their resilience plan. To achieve the resilience plan goals, communities must complete a seriesof technical and administrative tasks, including: identifying necessary public and private funding sources,
understanding administrative requirements of funding options, and securing funding at the right time toachieve the goals of the plan. Further, communities seek methods that allow decision-makers to understandtrade-offs between projects and justify investments. Demonstrating the value of resilience investments
includes fully accounting for the direct, indirect, and co-benefits, in addition to the costs, of resilience
projects and strategies.
Communities also seek a consolidated set of resources that allow them to identify potential funding sources.
Additionally, standard methods to quantify the benefits of resilience investments and project evaluation
methods need to be developed and recognized by the organizations funding resilience investments andapplied in user-friendly economic decision-support tools.
Moving Forward
Advancing the science and practice of resilience planning currently is an active field which brings
together researchers, practitioners, and communities. Collaboration across these diverse sectors with thecommon goal of increasing community resilience to natural hazards is an essential element of addressing
the issues presented in this report. The potential next steps presented in this report are opportunities forcollaboration between governments, organizations, and communities to work toward advancing thescience and practice of community resilience planning.

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This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making

Community
Resilience Goals
and Metrics(Chapter 2)Core Set ofStandard
Community
Resilience
Indicators andMetrics

Methodology
for Aggregation
orDisaggregationof Data from
Multiple
Sources for
Metrics andIndicators

Data andInformation(Chapter 3)

CommonCommunity
Resilience Data
Standards

Community
Resilience Tools(Chapter 4)

Visualization
Tools forCommunities

Community
Resilience
Planning(Chapter 5)Standard
Approach forCommunity
Resilience
Planning

Funding Sources
and Economic
Decision
Support(Chapter 6)
Awareness andCoordination of
Resilience
FundingResources

Communication
with
Stakeholders(Chapter 7)

Stakeholder
Communication
Best Practices

Resilience
Benefits in
Financial
Products
Best Practices
that Aid theCuration and
Disseminationof Validated
Data and Tools

Engagement
betweenCommunity
Users and Tool
Developers

Leadership
Training andCertification

Economic
Decision
Support Tools

Figure E-1. Summary of Potential Next Steps Identified in the Report

7

Risk andBenefits
Communication
Methods

Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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1.

Introduction

Community resilience is the ability to prepare for anticipated hazards, adapt to changing conditions, andwithstand and recover rapidly from disruptions [PPD-21 2013]. Local decision-makers face many
challenges as they plan and implement actions to increase the resilience of their communities to natural,technological, and human-caused hazards. The purpose of this report is to assess and improve the current
state of the art with regard to the data, information and tools that are necessary for communities to plan andimplement strategies to enhance the resilience of their communities.
While communities may face many types of disruptive events, this report focuses specifically on
community resilience to natural hazards, considering how the performance of the built environment helps
achieve community social, economic, and physical well-being. Challenges and opportunities to enhance
the use of data, information and tools that are currently used or are urgently needed by communities tosupport their resilience planning and decision-making processes are identified in this report.
Communities planning for resilience require data, information, and science-based tools to measure theperformance of social, economic, and physical dimensions of their community and their dependencies.
Decision-support tools are also needed to support evaluation and selection of actions to improve resilienceand meet other community priorities.
For the purposes of this report, the terms data, information, and tools are defined as follows:•••“Data” means quantitative and qualitative facts and figures that generally require further
manipulation and/or interpretation to be used for decision-making. For example, the responses ofresidents to a survey to obtain household incomes are “data”.
“Information” refers to data that has been processed and/or organized into an understandable andusable format. For example, the average household income for a community is information derived
from data.
“Tools” are instruments, models, or analysis methods that are used to collect, process, and organize
data into additional types of information. For example, geographic information systems (GIS) tools
can be used to analyze spatial relationships between household income and other social, economic,
or physical data and economic tools can be used to conduct benefit-cost analyses.

Additional terms and definitions are provided in Appendix 1.
1.1. Stakeholder Workshop
To better understand the resilience planning needs of communities, the National Institute of Standards andTechnology (NIST) and the Center for Risk-Based Resilience Planning (Center) sponsored a workshop on
Data Needs for Resilience Planning and Decision-Making, held in Rockville, Maryland, on October 25-26,
2018 [NIST 2018a]. The objectives of the workshop were to:• Gain a more complete understanding of communities’ decision-making processes associated withresilience planning at the community level,• Identify issues associated with the data and information needed to support community resilienceplanning and decision-making,• Identify common data needs of communities and researchers for the development and use of tools,
and• Identify actions to support the development of analysis tools that support planning and decisionmaking by communities.
One key challenge is finding, organizing, and processing data and information in a cost-effective manner
to support planning, decision-making, and implementation most effectively.

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There are five major decision points in the resilience planning process where data and information are
required or could be of assistance:
1. Establish social and economic goals and priorities
2. Identify building clusters 1 and supporting infrastructure systems, including their geographic
locations and dependencies
3. Determine performance goals and anticipated performance of building clusters and infrastructure
systems based on the expected hazard exposure and future conditions
4. Identify and prioritize performance gaps for building clusters and infrastructure systems, and theirimpacts on social and economic functions and services
5. Determine and evaluate project options to address performance gaps and meet other community
priorities
These decision points are based on input from communities and the NIST Community Resilience Planning
Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems [2016]. Using these five decision points, the workshop wasorganized around three topics:•••

How communities characterize themselves, set goals, and make decisions (decision points 1 and 2)
The gap between current and desired performance of the built environment (decision point 3)
Community resilience priorities and solutions (decision points 4 and 5)

The workshop included speakers and participants who represented cities, counties, regional bodies, andstates, as well as representatives from federal agencies, universities, non-profits, and the private sector. The
speakers and participants were asked to identify specific needs based on their experiences. Participants wereorganized into categories based on their organization’s affiliation: community representatives, researchers,
federal employees, and practitioners/consultants. In addition, the participants took part in parallel breakout
sessions that contained a balanced distribution of participants from these categories to ensure that allperspectives were considered in each discussion.
A steering committee, including representatives from community organizations, local government, federal
agencies, and practitioners assisted NIST in planning the workshop. The steering committee members
assisted NIST by identifying important topics based on their individual experience with communities,
identifying workshop speakers, and engaging their stakeholders.
1.2. Report Development and Organization
1.2.1

Report Topic Development

This report was informed by the workshop and research conducted by NIST and the Center. Data,
information, and tools needed to inform integrated planning processes for resilience on a community scale
were identified. Each chapter has three sections to document and discuss current approaches, issues inpractice, and gaps and needs to be addressed. The scope of data, tools, and information listed is not intended
to be exhaustive, but rather representative of the types of sources available. Further, the topics discussed in
the report do not represent a consensus perspective of the workshop participants or workshop steeringcommittee members.

1

Building clusters are sets of buildings, not necessarily geographically co-located, that serve a common function suchas housing, healthcare, retail, etc.

9Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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1.2.2

Report Organization

Chapter 2 reviews the need for resilience goals and metrics that can be used to guide community plans andto monitor community performance before and after hazard events.
Chapter 3 highlights the extensive data, information, and tools that exist, and identifies steps that could betaken to better organize these resources to increase access and use for community resilience planning.
Chapter 4 emphasizes the need for easy-to-use and easy-to-understand tools and guidance for community
resilience planning and decision-making.
Chapter 5 summarizes community resilience planning approaches, discusses steps for advancing educationand training in resilience planning, and identifies community plans that provide examples of integrating
resilience into a community.
Chapter 6 summarizes data and information needed by communities to obtain planning and recovery
funding and emphasizes the need for increased engagement with the private sector to enhance resilience.
Chapter 7 highlights the need for improved methods and approaches to communicate the elements ofresilience strategies, plans, and projects, and increase community awareness and understanding of hazard
risk.
Chapter 8 concludes the report with a summary of implementation needs and recommendations.

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2.

Community Resilience Goals and Metrics

Communities establish resilience goals to guide plans and future development, prioritize actions that
address hazard risks, and support resource allocation decisions. Indicators and metrics are often used to
track progress toward meeting community resilience goals.
2.1. Current Approaches
2.1.1.

Community Resilience Goals

Community resilience goals help decision-makers establish priorities and allocate resources. Many
communities monitor economic development, population growth, utility services, etc., but often do so in apiecemeal fashion where each goal or program is evaluated separately. This piecemeal approach can leadto unintended conflicts between projects relative to broader community goals. For example, newdevelopments may be planned for available property that is subject to flooding. Community resilience goals
provide a comprehensive basis for integrating existing plans for physical (e.g., hazard mitigation, public
works), social (e.g., education, healthcare), and economic (e.g., economic development) aspects of acommunity and help identify gaps and conflicts between plans.
Progress toward community goals is evaluated with quantitative metrics or indicators over time.
Community metrics can help decision-makers evaluate the performance and functionality of individual
community systems and services, spot emerging trends, and assess potential impacts of planned or expectedchanges relative to the resilience goals. However, given the uncertainty of when a hazard event will occur,
resilience metrics need to be meaningful both before and after hazard events, so that they guide community
resilience improvements prior to the next event.
2.1.2.

Indicators and Metrics Development Methodology

NIST and the Center are developing assessment methodologies and analytical models to provide a rigorous
approach for assessing community functions and services based on the performance of its physical, social,and economic systems and to evaluate the sensitivity of indicators and metrics [NIST 2019a; Center 2019].
The evaluation includes sensitivity to changes in input parameters, associated uncertainties, anddependencies on other factors or systems.
NIST tasked Lavelle et al. [2015] to conduct a critical assessment of existing methodologies that can beused to measure or assess community resilience for social and physical systems. Nine existing
methodologies representing ranges of community systems and modeling approaches were reviewed. The
selected methodologies were not necessarily developed specifically for the purpose of assessing community
resilience, but they were considered relevant and potentially applicable to the problem of community
resilience assessment, either in whole or in part. Three of the methods are noted here:••

Rockefeller Foundation City Resilience Framework (CRF) [Rockefeller 2014] and City
Resilience Index (CRI) [Rockefeller 2016]: The framework forms the basis of a tool to enable
those interested in city resilience to establish a common understanding of that idea and to assess
the city’s baseline. The framework and the index are intended to facilitate a process ofengagement with and within cities. Ultimately, the process should lead to new ideas andopportunities to engage many stakeholders on what makes a city resilient. The City Resilience
Framework provides a lens through which the complexity of cities and the numerous factors that
contribute to a city’s resilience can be understood. The framework is made up of 12 key indicatorsthat describe the fundamental attributes of a resilient city.
Baseline resilience indicators for communities (BRIC) [Cutter et al. 2014]: The purpose of BRIC
is to measure overall pre-existing community resilience. Using U.S. counties as the study unit,
the approach provides an empirically-based resilience metric for use in a policy context. It uses

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data from public and freely available sources, drawing on a common set of 49 indicators
associated with six different domains: social, economic, housing and infrastructure, institutional,
community capital, environmental.
NOAA Coastal Resilience Index (CRI) [NOAA 2010]: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration’s (NOAA) Coastal Resilience Index was developed to provide a simple selfassessment tool to help community leaders predict their community’s level of functioning after adisaster. The tool is intended for use by experienced local planners, engineers, floodplain
managers and administrators using readily available, existing sources of information, and a yes/noquestion format. The eight-page assessment addresses six broad areas: critical facilities andinfrastructure transportation issues, community plans and agreements, mitigation measures,
business plans, and social systems. The resulting assessment is meant to identify problems(vulnerabilities) that should be addressed before the next disaster; areas in which a community
should become more resilient; and where resources should be allocated.

To address the challenges associated with the measurement of resilience, NIST is developing a standardized
methodology to guide identification, evaluation, selection, and development of composite indicators andmetrics for community resilience [Dillard 2017]. The methodology will identify a more comprehensive,
integrated suite of composite indicators and metrics across community systems that are meaningful before
and after a disruptive event. This approach will seek to achieve consensus among existing resilience
methodologies and frameworks and will conduct validation studies (e.g. evaluation of indicators against
historical events) on resilience metrics and outcomes associated with a resilient system (e.g., shorterrecovery time, better performance during hazard event).
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Integration Center (NIC) Technical
Assistance (TA) Branch tasked Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) with providing a data-driven basis
to prioritize locations for TA investment. The methodology is based upon a literature review of peerreviewed community resilience assessment methodologies published within the past five years, evaluationof these methodologies in relation to a number of criteria, and the development of twenty indicators, elevenwith a population focus and nine with a community focus [Edgemon et al. 2018]. Common statisticalmethods and data structuring were used to establish five categories of data for each indicator and produced
choropleth maps of the U.S. showing county-level data for each indicator.
The Center and NIST researchers developed a set of preliminary community resilience goals and related
indicators and metrics that were informed by community outreach and the NIST Community Resilience
Planning Guide [NIST 2016], as shown in Table 2-1 [Ellingwood et al. 2019]. These resilience goals andindicators are being evaluated for their usefulness for decision-makers addressing community resilience, as
well as the data that are available for their quantification.
2.1.3.

Data Sources for Indicators and Metrics

Data to support community resilience assessment and planning are obtained from federal agencies (seeAppendix 2) and from state or local sources. There is a desire for data that is typically held by private
sources, such as electric power, communication, water systems, and insurance companies. However, there
are challenges associated with obtaining this data which include proprietary data concerns, security,
personally identifiable information, and competition among vendors or suppliers.
Some issues communities identified are that data are not available at the desired spatial or temporal scale
at present. This includes data associated with emerging climate conditions, such as increasing variability
and/or intensity associated with some natural hazards (e.g., rainfall or hurricanes), drought, wildfires, andthe effects of sea level rise on community flooding. Data are also needed to better characterize vulnerable
populations, the vulnerability of social/economic community systems, physical infrastructure performance,and physical/social system dependencies.

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Table 2-1. Example of Community Resilience Goals and Indicators
Community performance goals

Examples of resilience metrics

Population stability

Number of households dislocated; percent population remaining in thecommunity; percent population remaining in homes; change in housing
vacancy rate

Economic stability

Household income; employment; earnings by sector; assessed value of
property; change in taxes and revenue (resources); change in gross city
product (GCP)

Social services stability

Hospital bed demand/supply ratio; school teacher/student ratio;
availability of key retail and financial services

Physical services stability

Percent functionality of buildings and transportation systems; percent of
population served by water, wastewater, electric power, gas, andtelecommunication systems

Governance stability

Percent of population with access to police and fire protection and otheressential public government services

2.2. Issues in Practice2.2.1.

Indicators and Metrics Selection and Validation

There are many indicators, composite indicators, and metrics used to characterize the performance andfunctionality of social, economic, physical, and natural systems. A review of community resilience actions
and measurements identified several quantitative and qualitative indicators and metrics for social,economic, infrastructure systems and community preparedness [National Academies 2019]. Checklists
were also reviewed, as some provide scores based on responses.
Validation of indicators and metrics remains an ongoing challenge. A report published by the National
Academies [2019] found that none of the reviewed indicators and metrics had been validated for measuringchanges in community resilience. The varying range of rigor applied to developing indicators and metrics
presents a challenge in determining whether they can signal significant changes in a given community
function or service and inform decision-makers. A core set of validated indicators and metrics would enablecommunities to better track progress towards resilience goals and would enable learning from resilience
efforts in other communities. The lack of validated community resilience indicators and metrics raises
questions about the usefulness of those that are currently in use, specifically for the purpose of resilienceplanning.
2.2.2.

Data Sources for Indicators and Metrics

Data sources may include a combination of data from standardized national sources (e.g., American
Community Survey) and community sources (e.g., taxes, business data, electric power, and water service).
Primary data collection (e.g., surveys, interviews) may be used when the desired data is not available.
However, for resilience planning and implementation, this requires a substantial commitment to continue
collecting and analyzing the required data over time. Such a commitment may be made at a local, regional,
or national scale.
Spatial and temporal scales vary across data types for community systems. For instance, building data isoften available for a given location, demographic data may be obtained at a census block or tract scale, andeconomic data may be obtained at a community or regional scale. National data may be collected at anannual frequency whereas local data may be collected at a monthly or quarterly frequency. There are13Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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significant technical challenges associated with aggregating and de-aggregating data from multiple sources
for a set of indicators or metrics at the community scale [Ellingwood et al. 2019].
2.3. Gaps and Needs
The following steps are needed to advance the development of indicators and metrics for community
resilience:•••

Develop a core set of standard indicators and metrics that quantitatively evaluate the performanceand functionality of social, economic, physical, and natural systems before and after natural hazard
events.
Identify data requirements and sources for key indicators and metrics, with spatial scale andtemporal frequency.
Develop methods to integrate and aggregate (or de-aggregate) multi-disciplinary data for indicatorand metric computation.

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3.

Data and Information

A community’s data and information comprise the foundation of resilience planning processes. Successful
development, management and curation of these data resources would enable and improve the community
decision process. Developing and maintaining data and information includes establishing and enforcing
high quality data standards, accessing public sources of data, and maintaining local databases and data
management systems. Examples of data sources used by communities are listed in Appendix 2, as well asother data that communities might need to support their resilience planning and implementation.
Communities acquire data to inform their resilience planning processes from several sources. Municipal
governments develop their own databases and data management systems for planning and operations.
Municipal data systems vary in scale and complexity based upon an individual community’s planningneeds, compliance with funding and other regulatory requirements, and available resources. All
communities rely upon public data and information, which are essential to resilience planning. However,
not all data that are useful to community resilience planning is available to communities, such as data forprivately held infrastructure systems and facilities. Challenges persist in ensuring that communities can: (1)discover and access public data in a timely manner, (2) understand appropriate uses of the data for resilienceplanning, and (3) ensure that data are compatible with the platforms and analytical tools in use.
Opportunities exist to address these challenges by increasing the discoverability and accessibility of data
supporting resilience planning and ensuring consistency in the curation, maintenance, and distribution ofdata for resilience planning across communities.
3.1. Current Approaches
3.1.1.

Community Data Management and Acquisition

Many communities maintain data sources and management systems to manage their operations and support
planning and assessment activities. The extent and sophistication of the data collection, management, andanalytical capabilities varies with community resources. Generally, community data provide information
about the community’s built environment (e.g., buildings permits, infrastructure operations), local economy(e.g., tax revenues, business licensing), social institutions (school attendance), and demographics (e.g.,
population, race/ethnicity). For other types of data needed in resilience planning, communities rely upon
public data sources. These data sources may be based on experience, sources that are shared by othercommunities, or sources referred by partner organizations (e.g., non-governmental organizations, researchorganizations, consultants).
3.1.2.

Discipline-Specific Data Management, Practices, and Dissemination

Communities, their partners, and contractors currently are responsible for identifying, acquiring, andintegrating public data sources with a community’s internal data sources and analytical tools. Training andexpertise are required to identify, acquire, integrate, and analyze data from multiple disciplines, such as
those listed in Appendix 2. For example, data on infrastructure systems may be maintained by private
owners and operators, hazard data are maintained by standards organizations and government agencies, andsocial, demographic, and economic data are largely maintained by government agencies.
Some data types require accessing multiple data sources, such as natural hazard data. Buildings andinfrastructure have design values for wind, hurricane, flood, earthquake, rain, and snow events which canbe obtained from the appropriate standards organizations. Other hazards, such as wildfire, tornadoes, hail,and landslides, have less well-developed design values for buildings, and hazard design values are often
based on historical events and site-specific studies. Historical data may be useful for community planningpurposes but may be less severe than design values from standards. For community resilience assessments,

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hazard scenarios are used to test the integrated performance and response of the community and may bebased on design standards or historical data. Data from past events can also be used to validate predictivemodels.
Some data can have multiple uses for resilience planning. For instance, if tax data shows limited sales tax
generation in one area of a community, it may indicate an economically vulnerable population. Tax
appraisal data is sometimes used to identify areas at risk for a hazard event, using building age as a proxyfor building code provisions and estimating anticipated performance for a hazard event. However, thisapproach is a substitute for obtaining the data the design code at building construction.
The following are examples of the types of data that community representatives indicated as being generally
available and particularly useful for integrated resilience planning efforts (see Appendix 2):•

Built environment:o Adopted building code at time of building constructiono Structural plans and drawings (when required)o Number of dwelling unitso Construction typeo First floor elevation (FFE)o Location of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems•

Social and Demographic:o Population and household data [American Community Survey, Census Bureau 2019]o Population, household, and transportation data [US Census of Population and Housing,also aggregated in Social Vulnerability Index by CDC 2019]o Household information for rapid needs assessment from the Community Assessment for
Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) [CDC 2018]o Population vulnerabilities (e.g., location of Medicare beneficiaries with electricallypowered medical equipment from emPOWER [HHS 2018]•

Economic:o Assessed value of structureso Employment and wages data [BLS 2019]o County or community tax data

3.2. Issues in Practice3.2.1.

Proliferation of Resilience-Related Data Resources

The types of data supporting resilience planning are broad, spanning multiple topics and scientificdisciplines. Similarly, sources for acquiring these data are also numerous. This proliferation of resiliencerelated data, generated by government agencies, professional organizations, or communities themselves,
has created a situation where data formats are variable and significant amounts of resources and labor canbe expended to curate data for resilience planning activities. Several factors contribute to the pace of data
creation and the use and uptake of resilience-related data sources:•

Resilience planning includes many elements of communities, such as buildings, transportation,energy, telecommunications, water, wastewater, human services, economics, health care, andeducation. Synthesizing these diverse types of data into usable and accessible formats for analysis
and assessments from multiple disciplinary fields is a challenging task for both research andcommunity planning purposes.

•

Resilience data would benefit from guidance and standardization on data formats for analysis tools
supporting community resilience planning and assessment.

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3.2.2.

Community input on data that are not currently available for resilience planning, including therequired format and scale (both spatial and temporal), will inform agencies, practitioners andresearcher efforts.
Data and Information Discoverability and Accessibility Challenges

A related, but separate, challenge is the need to ensure that resources are easily accessible by the
stakeholders and end-users. There are multiple challenges associated with data and information
accessibility: development and maintenance of databases and repositories of information, public awarenessand use of information resources in a manner consistent with its intended design, and interoperability withother resources and tools.
Generally, data producers want their resources to be discoverable and accessible (although exceptions exist
for sensitive data sources) and used in a technically appropriate manner. However, communities find that
identifying an appropriate data source from the large number of data sources available to be challenging.
Issues include awareness of available data sources, understanding their differences and options, and how to
select suitable sources of data.
3.2.3.

Lack of Guidance and Standards for Data and Information

Communities require multiple sources of data and information that often are incompatible with the required
format of a tool or for integrated evaluation. For example, resilience planning requires data on acommunity’s built environment, demographics, economy, and hazards. Integrating multiple sources of datafor resilience assessment and planning requires expertise across multiple disciplines. There is a lack of
guidance and standards on data formatting and methods for combining multiple sources of data forcommunity resilience analytical tasks. Often these data sources are collected for purposes other thanresilience planning (e.g., permit data, tax and revenue data), which can lead to lack of uniformity when toattempting to integrate various sources. Additionally, data needed by communities for resilience planning
may involve personally identifiable information that are collected directly or through surveys of community
residents. Standards and guidance are needed to ensure these data are available to aid planning and that
personal or security information remain protected.
At present, communities and practitioners face a technically challenging and time-intensive data selection
effort. Additionally, the lack of data guidance and standards limits the comparability of analyses supporting
resilience planning efforts and hinders community sharing of resilience data and information technology
resources.
3.3. Gaps and Needs
3.3.1.

Development of Data Standards, Data Management, and Best Practices

Advances in standards and best practices for data will help communities characterize the resilience of theirbuilt environment and social and economic systems to natural hazards. These advances have the potential
to reduce the resources needed to conduct resilience planning and improve the quality of the results. To
foster and support their use, maintenance, and dissemination, data standards and best practices need to be
adopted and maintained by standards organizations, or similar organizations.
Data standards and best practices are needed to provide a common format, structure, and principles to ensure
a set level of compatibility between data sources. Data standards and best practices would also improve
tool development. Additionally, engagement opportunities for the producers, end-users (communities), and17

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intermediary organizations are needed to support multi-disciplinary collaboration for developing andmaintaining common data standards and best practices.
Initial steps to develop data standards and best practices could include:•

Evaluate methods used by other efforts that have established data standards, with features such ascommunity-level spatial scales and integration of interdisciplinary datasets.

•

Develop technical requirements for ensuring data set quality control and accessibility.

•

Establish standards that address classification of data and metadata.

•

Develop open data management principles, that include federal government open data principles
and policies [CIO 2019].

•

Identify and engage the necessary standard development organizations that have standing andrepresentation across disciplines involved in resilience planning.

3.3.2.

Develop Processes that Aid the Curation and Dissemination of Validated Data

To reduce the burden on individual communities in locating data sources best suited for their needs andverifying technical credibility of those data, improved approaches and methods for resilience data curationand dissemination are needed.
Efforts to improve the curation of resilience data, information products, and tools could include:•

Identify existing successful curation and dissemination models to support end-user resilienceplanning data and information needs.

•

Develop curation and dissemination models with multi-disciplinary collaboration of organizations
and sectors involved in the development, dissemination, and use of data, information sources, andtools in resilience planning.

•

Develop data management best practices for data curation and dissemination to ensure that
resilience data portals are designed with user needs in mind. Specifically, compatibility with
common data tools and platforms used by communities, such as GIS analysis tools, is needed.

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4.

Community Resilience Tools

Communities and practitioners require analytical and visualization tools to evaluate the integrated
performance of the built environment and the social, and economic systems they support to aid resilienceplanning efforts. Hazus [FEMA 2018a] is one such tool that supports mitigation planning. Morecomprehensive tools are currently being developed by NIST [NIST 2019a] and the Center for Risk-Based
Community Resilience Planning [Center 2019]. At present, most analyses tools focus on individual systems
used for capital asset and infrastructure planning, operations, and evaluation. Individual system analyses
often lack recognition of dependencies on other infrastructure systems, and do not address impacts of theperformance of the built environment on social and economic systems.
Many of the data and information challenges discussed in Chapter 3 are similar to community resilience
tool challenges. There is a need for best practices and guidance on analyses and decision-support
information output and visualization of results. Tools that support community resilience planning anddecision-making also should address resilience metrics and indicators, interdependencies between systems,
multiple types of losses, short and long term benefits, and resilience impacts of future projects or policychanges.
4.1. Current Approaches
4.1.1.

Community Resilience Analysis, Decision-Support, and Visualization Tools

Many communities maintain spatial analysis tools, often in a GIS format, and have in-house technical staff
to perform analysis to support operational and policy making needs. GIS tools display information using
layers for each type of data (e.g., population, tax revenue and other economic information, buildings,
infrastructure systems) across the community. Communities seek additional GIS tools to better support
resilience planning and to aid with visualizations and communication.
Tools that communities can update and maintain with local and public data, and that allow control overresults are needed. While GIS resources have tremendous utility for communities, they have a training andresource requirement that not all communities can support.
In recent years, there have been efforts by organizations across multiple sectors to curate the best available
tools and associated data for specific resilience planning applications and stakeholder needs. Collectively,
these efforts provide valuable curation of resources that could inform the standardization and organizationof high-quality tools and data sources. While tool resource collections help serve the diverse needs ofcommunities, it can be challenging for communities to determine which tools and methodologies are mostappropriate for their planning. Examples of tool resource collections are included in Appendix 3.
Community resilience tool selection is often motivated by resilience planning and external funding program
requirements. Examples of external programs include FEMA hazard mitigation programs, Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and CDBGDisaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) programs, and Department of Commerce Economic Development Agency(EDA) programs. Each of these programs offers financial support for various components of a community
resilience plan to qualifying communities. Each of these programs have requirements for current andhistorical data, plans, matching funds, and other input that varies in format and content depending on the
purpose of the program. Further examples of funding programs are discussed in Chapter 6 and provided inAppendix 4.

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4.1.2.

Examples of Currently Available Tools

Most community resilience tools are publicly available and developed by government agencies, non-profit
organizations, or research organizations. These tools can be grouped into two classes: analysis tools anddecision-support and visualization tools. Analysis tools provide methodologies and data to help
communities characterize their hazard exposure, support assessments, and provide the analytical foundation
for resilience planning. Decision-support and visualization tools support tradeoff analysis options, justify
investment decisions, and engage and communicate with stakeholders.
Examples of analytical, decision-support, and visualization tools include Hazus [FEMA 2018a], Economic
Decision Guide Software (EDGe$) [NIST 2018b], and Interconnected Networked Community Resilience
Modeling Environment (IN-CORE) [van de Lindt et al. 2018; van de Lindt et al. 2018].
•

Hazus [FEMA 2018a] estimates potential losses from earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes
using GIS technology to estimate physical (e.g., buildings, some infrastructure systems), economic(e.g., job losses, business interruptions, repair and reconstruction costs), and social (e.g., shelter
requirements, displaced households, exposed populations) impacts. It has three levels of analysis:
o
o
o

•

•

Level 1 – Default hazard, building and infrastructure inventory, and damage information
Level 2 – Combinations of user-input and default hazard, inventory, and damage data
Level 3 – User-input of detailed engineering data

Level 1 analysis requires a limited amount of user input but the results also have reduced accuracy
and confidence level. Levels 2 and 3 may provide more detailed or accurate results but require
specialized knowledge for input preparation.
The NIST Community Resilience Economic Decision Guide [NIST 2015] and EDGe$ tool [NIST2018] provides a life-cycle cost analysis methodology to help communities prioritize and selectcost-effective, community resilience projects that includes consideration of indirect benefits andco-benefits (e.g. reduction in air and water emissions, increased economic activity).
The Center is developing the Interconnected Networked Community Resilience Modeling
Environment (IN-CORE) [Center 2019; van de Lindt et al, 2018, van de Lindt et al, 2019], ananalysis environment that will address the impacts of and recovery from hurricane, tornado,
earthquake and flood events on the built environment and on community social and economic
functions. It will also identify optimal solutions sets that meet community resilience goals to aid
with resilience planning. The first release of IN-CORE, scheduled for December 2019, will
facilitate community and user feedback to inform the development of the full version in 2022.

Other examples of available tools are included in Appendix 3.
4.2. Issues in Practice4.2.1.

Community Resilience Analysis Tools

Communities seek analytical tools that describe the impacts of hazards at spatial and temporal scales
relevant to community decisions and investments for their built environment, social institutions, economy,
and citizens.
Best practices are needed to guide the application of hazards and hazard scenarios in analysis tools for thebuilt environment in communities. Analytical tools for assessing hazard impacts on individual facilities orinfrastructure systems rely on either design criteria in standards or historical events for hazards less welladdressed by standards and codes, such as tornadoes, wildfires, or sea level rise. Methods and tools forassessing hazard impacts across a community’s buildings or infrastructure systems often use hazard

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scenarios to determine interdependencies between systems and direct and cascading impacts over ageographic area.
Analytical tools are needed to characterize the immediate damage and losses to physical, social, andeconomic systems, as well as their recovery. For example, some neighborhoods and populations are affecteddisproportionately by factors associated with the hazard: intrinsic vulnerabilities in the built environment,
availability of resources, and challenges due to individual or family vulnerabilities. Existing tools forresilience planning primarily focus on mitigation planning, but do not include recovery models that reflect
interdependencies and how they can vary with alternate mitigation options and/or recovery strategies.
Further advances are needed for more complete assessments to support community resilience planning.
4.2.2.

Decision-Support and Visualization Tools

As plans and solutions are identified to improve a community’s resilience, tools are needed that can provide
information to help decision-makers prioritize potential solutions. Information that quantifies the full rangeof benefits of resilience enhancement strategies, including non-monetizable benefits, is needed. Quantifying
indirect benefits and co-benefits is needed to determine the value of resilience beyond the reduction in
direct costs of repairing damage to the built environment.
In the process of developing resilience plans, communities face the challenge of understanding how their
existing plans across multiple departments support or detract from their overall resilience goals. Tools areneeded that can help decision-makers understand how proposed resilience projects and strategies impact
existing plans and advance community resilience.
As alternative proposals are put forward and decisions are made, community leaders need tools to help
them communicate effectively with their constituents and stakeholders and to obtain feedback. Geographic
information systems (GIS) tools are used by many communities for data collection and to show current
conditions and future impacts of plans graphically. However, additional tools are also needed for effective
communication of resilience plans that convey risks, benefits, and changes over time for proposed resiliencestrategies.
4.3. Gaps and Needs
4.3.1.

Analysis and Decision-Support Tools

Communities need analysis tools that can characterize their built, social, and economic systems and assesshazard impacts, determine expected damage and losses, and estimate rates of recovery across these systems.
Tools for investment decision-support are also needed that address community risks and benefits of aparticular project. Efforts to increase the utility of community resilience analysis and decision-support tools
include:•••Develop best practices and standards for selecting hazard scenarios for community resilience
analyses. Methods to characterize hazards not currently addressed by standards are needed to
inform their inclusion in analysis tools.
Develop and validate tools that characterize immediate damage and losses for hazard events as wellas subsequent recovery of community system functions.
Develop analysis tools to assess the effects of proposed resilience improvement projects or actions,
their impacts on the population, businesses, organizations, and built environment, and the risks andbenefits for community resilience.

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4.3.2.

Visualization Tools for Communication

GIS visually communicates information across geographic areasand can depict complex interactions or dependencies over space
and time. Thus, GIS is often used to convey current or proposed
future conditions across physical, social and economic systems. A
complex issue, such as the spatial interactions of householdincome, infrastructure functionality, and land use on post-event
recovery rates, can be conveyed relatively simply with overlaysof each element, as indicated in Figure 4-1 [NIST 2016].
Similarly, GIS overlays at various points in time can also be used
to identify cascading effects between systems.
Other visual methods may be required to help communicate thevulnerabilities, risks, and benefits of a plan or project to acommunity. For example, community values that are not easily
characterized or quantified often play a large role in decisionmaking and may be represented with qualitative indicators.
Examples include quality of life issues, such as maintaining
historic districts or having more greenspace, such as parks,
accessible to the public.
Visualization tools to support decision-making are often
summarized by a suite or ‘dashboard’ of indicators or metrics thatare aligned with community goals. Quantifying and presenting a
range of indicators and metrics across physical, social, andeconomic systems can be challenging. Issues include relative
weighting of each indicator relative to community priorities,
consistent quantification methods, and meaningful indicators andmetrics that are broadly understood.

Figure 4-1. GIS can be used toCommunicate Co-Located System
Interactions Graphically at theCommunity Level

Next steps to improve visualization tools for resilience include:•••

4.3.3.

Develop methods to graphically depict dependencies, vulnerabilities, risks, and benefits over space
and time.
Develop methods to help communicate qualitative indicators or values.
Develop methods to effectively communicate a range of indicators and metrics across physical,
social, and economic systems.
Opportunities for Engagement between Community Users and Tool Developers

Opportunities for engagement are needed to facilitate information exchange on tool development and use
challenges between community users, including practitioners that support communities, and tool
developers.
Two potential approaches are:•Provide opportunities for community users to regularly interact with, support, and test thedevelopment of resilience tools with the goal of providing user community and feedback todevelopers. Existing analysis tool forums may provide useful examples of formats, support needs,
and other experiences to support this need.

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Develop platforms and other opportunities to increase community-to-community sharing andlearning to help both communities and developers of data and tools identify and promote bestpractices for resilience planning. Some of the most valuable learning opportunities come from
community-to-community interactions. Communities share information about what tools are mostuseful, how to overcome challenges associated with incorporating new tools and information thatthey may not be familiar with and seeking support in resilience planning.

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5.

Community Resilience Planning

Community resilience planning has evolved over the last few decades, with more recent focus oncomprehensive community planning for resilience before and recovery after hazard events. At present there
is a wide range of approaches, tools, and supporting data for addressing natural hazards and future climate
impacts, but a standard approach for community resilience planning is lacking. Additionally, those
responsible for leading resilience efforts have a variety of backgrounds, including political science, businessadministration, emergency management, sustainability (including climate adaptation planning), and urban
planning. While these skills, education, and experience are important, community resilience planningrequires a multi-disciplinary skill set. This section explores how communities and their representatives
currently undertake comprehensive community resilience planning and potential steps to advance thepractice and field of community resilience planning.
5.1. Current Approaches
5.1.1.

Community Resilience Planning Guidance

Resilience planning in communities has emerged as an important practice in recent years, prompted
primarily by the damage and losses sustained in a number of wind, flood, and wildfire events. These events
have demonstrated that reliance on federal aid, while important and valuable, is often insufficient to address
long-term community resilience. Communities can do much more to reduce the severity of damage andplan for recovery when damage does occur. The following reports and activities are examples of efforts
that helped develop that awareness.
•

Starting in 2002, FEMA required communities to prepare hazard mitigation plans to qualify for
their Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for assistance after disaster events [FEMA 2002]. Many
communities have emergency management officials to manage this requirement and community
planning for hazards,•

The BRIC index considers six categories of community resilience: social, economic, community
capital, institutional, infrastructural, and environmental at the county level [Cutter 2010]. Used asa baseline for monitoring resilience to natural hazards (see Section 2.1.2), BRIC can be used todetermine the specific drivers of resilience for counties and to monitor improvements in resilience
over time.

•

In 2011, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) FEMA released the National Preparedness Goal
(NPG) [FEMA 2018c] which identified core capabilities across five mission areas—prevention,
protection, mitigation, response and recovery. Each of these mission areas has guidance to help
communities establish roles and responsibilities between local, tribal, territorial, state, and federal
agencies for all types of disasters and emergencies [DHS 2015]. The risks include events such as
natural disasters, disease pandemics, chemical spills and other manmade hazards, terrorist attacks
and cyber attacks.

•

The National Research Council report on Disaster Resilience [NRC 2012] examined the resilienceof individuals, households, communities, and nation following the 2011 series of 14 weather related
disasters. The current status of resilience planning was evaluated, with a call to develop a cultureof resilience, which included transparent information on risks and vulnerabilities, resiliencestrategies at all levels of government, proactive investments and policy decisions, community
coalitions to provide essential services before and after events, and rapid recovery with decreasingneed for federal aid.

•

The Rockefeller Foundation established the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) global program, which
was launched in 2013 [Rockefeller 2019a]. The program included shocks (e.g., natural hazards) as

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well as stresses (e.g., unemployment, food shortages, inadequate public transportation) as part ofresilience planning. Interested cities submitted applications to the 100RC program to receive
support for a Chief Resilience Officer, expert support, access to service providers, and a global
network of member cities. In April 2019, the Rockefeller Foundation announced the 100RC
program was concluded, but that resources were committed to continue the resilience initiatives
underway [Rockefeller 2019b].
•

NIST conducted a series of national workshops on community resilience in 2014, which supported
the development of the Community Resilience Planning Guide [NIST 2016]. The workshops
addressed the resilience of physical, social, economic community systems and services, with input
from a broad range of public and private stakeholders.

•As part of the recovery mission area, the Community Planning and Capacity Building Recovery
Support Function developed the Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for Local Governments[FEMA 2017].

See Appendix 4 for other federal programs that provide support for community resilience planning and/or
funding.
5.1.2.

Community Resilience Planning in Communities

Communities may undertake resilience planning after being impacted by a disaster or proactively plan for
future hazard events. While the specifics of scope and purpose varies, the following common activities
occur when conducting community resilience planning, as outlined by the Guide [NIST 2016]:
Guide Step 1: Collaborative Planning Team•

Identify resilience leadership and engage key stakeholder representatives

Guide Step 2: Understand the Situation•

Characterize anticipated performance and vulnerabilities of existing physical, social, and economic
systems

Guide Step 3: Determine Goals and Objectives•

Articulate resilience goals and methods to measure progress

Guide Step 4: Plan Development•

Develop a resilience plan that identifies solutions for vulnerabilities and community needs before
and after disruptive events that aligns other community plans with resilience goals

Guide Step 5: Plan Preparation, Review, and Approval•

Ensure community involvement, support, and approval of resilience plans

Guide Step 6: Plan Maintenance•Follow-up with implementation and monitoring of solutions to improve resilience

These activities are taking place in many communities, although the approach and scale of the efforts varydepending on the community’s resources, motivations, and the availability of appropriate data and tools.
Community resilience planning approaches by four communities, which were presented at the October 2018
workshop [NIST 2018a], highlight similarities and differences in current practice.
•

Cedar Rapids, IA. Cedar Rapids began resilience planning following the 2008 flood that displaced
10,000 residents, damaged 5,900 residential properties, and 1,133 commercial properties, caused

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1,360 job losses, and damaged or destroyed 310 city-owned facilities. Recovery priorities were set
for people and housing, business recovery, and public building recovery. Immediately after theflood, the City Council led recovery efforts with its residents to develop plans that would restore
its pre-flood state and improve its resilience going forward. Within five months, the local
government approved a River Corridor Reinvestment Plan that established a flood control system
for the river corridor and guidance for rebuilding that included acquiring residential andcommercial properties in floodplains, elevating new buildings to one foot over the 100-year flood
elevation, maintaining the building codes and permit process to balance rebuilding quality with
rapid restoration [Cedar Rapid 2012].
The residents contributed input on a vision and goals for Cedar Rapids, as well as plans for 10
neighborhood and transportation and infrastructure needs. Additional neighborhood plans havebeen developed over the past decade. Prior to the flood, the city developed a Downtown
Revitalization Plan for the economy, which was adjusted after the flood. All these activities
included a significant community engagement component.
•

Joplin, MO. On May 22, 2011, an EF-5 tornado destroyed 4,000 structures in Joplin and damaged
another 3,500 structures. A total of 158 people died as a direct result of the tornado; another threedeaths were indirectly related to the event. Following the tornado, the City Manager and City
Planner recognized the value of including the residents in the long-term recovery planning, which
led to the formation of the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team (CART). A community-wide goal
was to maintain Joplin’s population. The first public meeting of the CART brainstormed andcollected ideas for rebuilding. The second public meeting voted on the rebuilding ideas to support
prioritization. The third meeting focused on making decisions to move forward which led to a
CART Plan [CART 2013] that provided the city with a prioritized list of projects and programs.
The city government still refers to the CART report when funding opportunities arise to identify
projects for implementation.
These meetings reflected two key tenets identified for communication and decision-making, notedin the workshop presentation: “Communication is not the dissemination of a decision, but the effort
and inclusion of the appropriate people and organizations to make the right decision” and “If yourpartners and resources are affected by a decision yet don’t have some ownership of it, the likelihoodof successful completion diminishes greatly”.
During the recovery process, GIS mapping capabilities were used to monitor where people werelocated (with FEMA input) and properties for sale (realtor input) and under construction or
demolition (permitting input). A notable gap was the need for expertise about housing assessments,
financing, and solutions [CART 2013].

•

Nashua, NH. Nashua is using the NIST Community Resilience Planning Guide [NIST 2016a] todevelop a resilience plan that incorporates a Hazard Mitigation Plan (HMP) under the leadershipof the Director of Emergency Management. The impetus to develop a resilience plan was promptedby the need to update their HMP. Nashua formed a Collaborative Planning Team (CPT) that
included key stakeholders, such as residents, city staff, businesses, and nonprofits. The CPT
identified the social functions that were important to the community and 500 buildings andinfrastructure that support those functions. Data were collected on the 500 buildings to evaluate theanticipated performance of the buildings and infrastructure for hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods
using Hazus [FEMA 2018a] and to identify vulnerabilities. Challenges included selecting hazard
scenarios for evaluation and communicating community vulnerabilities and risks. Community
goals of desired performance were established with input from community stakeholders.

•

Oregon Resilience Plan (ORP). The ORP was published in 2013 by the Oregon Seismic Safety
Policy Advisory Committee [OSSPAC 2013]. This statewide plan was developed using a scenario
magnitude 9.0 earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone Fault to estimate damage to buildings

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and infrastructure. The expert judgement and consensus of 169 volunteers was used to set goals forand determine the anticipated recovery time of buildings and infrastructure in four zones of thestate. Resilience goals were based on business and community needs for each zone. The resilience
goals included acceptable target timeframes to recovery essential functions in communities (e.g.,
electricity, police and fire services, water and sewer, highways, and healthcare). The target
timeframes account for the fact that businesses can only tolerate two to four weeks of disruption of
essential services. The planning process identified large gaps between the desired and anticipatedperformance across the built environment and provided recommendations for statewide policies
and actions to achieve the desired performance targets. Projects at the local level are underway.
5.1.3. Community Resilience Guidance
Guidance methods or processes help communities develop technically credible planning documents.
Examples of community resilience guidance include the Plan Integration Scorecard (Scorecard) [Masterson
et al. 2017], the NIST Community Resilience Planning Guide (Guide) [NIST 2016a and 2016b], and ASTM
E3130-18 Standard Guide for Developing Cost-Effective Community Resilience Strategies [2018].
•••

The Scorecard compares community plans to improve their coordination and identify gaps andinconsistencies. Additional tools are being developed at the state and local level, such as guidance
for land use planning, zoning, and climate planning [CO-DOLA 2019].
The Guide provides a 6-step planning process to help communities engage all their stakeholders,characterize and evaluate their existing community social, economic, and physical systems forhazard events, determine community resilience goals, and develop and maintain community plansthat incorporate the resilience goals.
ASTM E3130-18 provides an economic framework to evaluate investment strategies to help
communities with a standardized approach for their resilience planning.

5.2. Issues in Practice
The concept of community resilience emerged over the past two decades following the series of disasterevents experienced across the country that included the human-caused disasters on September 11, 2001,
and other natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, wind, flood, wildfire). Significant risk continues to exist
across the nation for substantial damage from hazard events due to urban development, population growth,and aging infrastructure [McAllister 2013].
While federal assistance is available to help communities and states that are overwhelmed by a disasterevent, there was an observed disconnect between community planning for growth and preparations forhazard events. For example, community planning for hazard mitigation, response, and recovery is being
addressed by many more communities, but it is often not incorporated into other community plans,potentially leading to conflicting goals between plans in communities.
Even today, communities have many plans, such as comprehensive or general plans, economic development
plans, public works plans, and hazard mitigation plans. However, these plans often do not address the samecommunity goals, consider vulnerable populations or recovery plans. To improve community resilience,
communities need tools and metrics to proactively identify their resilience goals, characterize their current
community conditions, identify gaps in performance, integrate all community plans around resilience goals,
and develop prioritized solutions that advance their resilience.
To enable community resilience planning, leaders with broad multi-disciplinary training are needed.
However, curricula for community resilience education and professional certificate programs have yet to
be developed.

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5.3. Gaps and Needs
Community resilience planning is underway across the United States. As planning efforts evolve andmature, gaps in standard approaches and supporting methods are being identified. However, many
community resilience leaders’ expertise and training are based on prior professional experience andbackgrounds in disciplines such as emergency management, sustainability, urban planning, or citymanagement. The following steps will help advance community resilience leadership and planning:•

A standard approach to community resilience planning will improve the basis for developing a core
set of indicators, metrics, and associated data, facilitate community collaboration, and develop riskconsistent measures for evaluating investment strategies that enhance community resilience.

•

Resilience education should be formalized to help leaders and technically skilled workers address
the range of disciplines, stakeholders, and issues required for community resilience planning,
including planning, mitigation, adaptation, and recovery of physical, social, and economic systems
and services; this could be achieved through accredited academic curriculum or professional
certification programs.

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6.

Funding Sources and Economic Decision-Support

Success for any resilience planning effort will be measured by a community’s ability to implement theactions recommended and realize the outcomes described in the plan. Plan implementation requires acommunity to identify funding sources, raise revenue, and provide operational support to (possibly new)administrative roles supporting recovery.
Communities may seek options, approaches, and tools that allow them to transition their resilience plans
into tangible capital projects and administrative programs. To accomplish this, economic decision-support
tools are needed to help establish project funding priorities and demonstrate the economic benefits ofprojects.
6.1. Current Approaches
6.1.1.

Federal Programs

The role that federal agencies play in administering pre- and post-event mitigation and recovery programs
is essential to improving community resilience. Their engagement and outreach efforts to communities area primary method for raising awareness of available funding. Community input indicated that federal
program requirements drive many project implementation decisions and help communities prioritize
actions before and after an event. Appendix 4 lists examples of federal funding assistance resources.
The National Mitigation Investment Strategy (NMIS) [MitFLG 2019] was published recently and includes
several priority actions that aim to serve community stakeholders by conducting outreach to raise awarenessof funding opportunities. The NMIS identifies the need to simplify the process for acquiring funding andreporting requirements.
The HUD Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) [HUD 2019a] promotes integrated
approaches for housing, living environments, and economic opportunities for low and moderate income
persons through development of partnerships between public and private entities. These approaches areencouraged for application to HUD grant programs.
The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) is partnering with HUD to facilitate the ability ofcommunities, regions and states to access and co-invest agency resources for comprehensive, high-impact
economic and community development projects [EDA 2019]. Under EDA’s Economic Development
Integration Team and the HUD CPD, a series of voluntary guidance tools are being developed to conduct
comprehensive streamlined planning processes that satisfy the criteria for both an EDA Comprehensive
Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) and a HUD Consolidated Plan.
6.1.2.

Internal and Outsourced Knowledge and Experience

Communities may have internal staff resources dedicated to resilience funding management or they may
outsource these responsibilities by hiring a contractor. Many communities use both approaches to varying
degrees.
Additionally, communities rely on their neighboring communities for mutual aid and to gain knowledge
about preparation for hazard events. Communities that have faced significant recovery processes can guidetheir counterparts facing similar circumstances. Communities also plan on technical support from volunteer
community organizations, such as faith-based organizations and the American Red Cross [NVOAD 2019].

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6.1.3.

Business Case for Resilience

To realize large community resilience projects, such as improvements to at-risk properties or replacementof infrastructure, funding is often required from public and private sources. Such projects often have large
initial costs but can accrue much greater benefits before and after hazard events to the properties andcommunity over time. Accounting for “co-benefits” of resilience projects, such as business growth andproperty value appreciation, builds a business case for private sources of funding for resilience projects[Helgeson et al. 2018]. Current practice focuses on short-term direct returns for the investments. The
challenge of ‘monetizing’ the resilience dividend over longer periods of time is not well-addressed andneeds accepted methods, tools, and financial instruments for such applications [Fung and Helgeson 2017,
RMS et al. 2018].
Tools are being developed to identify measures to promote more resilient designs that are cost effective.
The EDGe$ tool [NIST 2018] and the associated Economic Decision Guide [NIST 2015] help identify andcompare the relevant present and future resilience costs and benefits associated with new capital investment
alternatives versus maintaining a community’s status-quo.
The RAND Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation formed a partnership to develop a framework to
estimate the net benefits of a resilience project [Bond et al. 2017], the Resilience Dividend Valuation Model(RDVM). The framework defines the resilience dividend to include the net benefits associated with theabsorption of shocks and stressors, the recovery path following a shock, and co-benefits that accrue from a
project, even in the absence of a shock.
The National Institute of Building Sciences recently published a report of an interim study that examined
two sets of mitigation strategies and found that society saves $6 for every $1 spent through mitigation grants
funded through select federal agencies [NIBS 2017]. There was a corresponding benefit-cost ratio (BCR)
of 4:1 for investments that exceeded select provisions of the 2015 model building codes.
6.2. Issues in Practice6.2.1. Identifying
Implementation

Funding

SourcesforCommunity

Resilience

Planning

andProject

Communities may interact with a number of funding programs to help them prepare for and recover fromhazard events. Funding sources may include the federal and state governments, nonprofit organizations,insurance, in-kind support from volunteers, and their own resources.
Prior to a hazard event, communities often find that the requirements for funding mitigation andpreparedness projects are complex or challenging. After a disruptive hazard event, community leaders are
faced with responding to the near-term needs of their citizens, including the protection of life and property,
while also navigating the requirements of recovery funding programs and long-term alignment ofcommunity growth with resilience plans.
6.2.2.

Economic Decision-Support Tools

The benefits of resilience projects may include cost savings and avoided damages because enhancing
resilience on a community-scale can create value and benefits, even if a hazard event does not occur. For
example, two solutions to the same resilience issue may have different associated co-benefits (i.e., benefits
that accrue on a day-to-day basis even if a disruptive event has not yet occurred), which are also referred toas the resilience dividend [Rodin 2014]. Inclusion of co-benefits in the evaluation of community resilience
projects avoids underestimating the total value of a resilience project. To date, quantification of the net co-30

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benefits of resilience planning is not often addressed, as it is not a straight-forward task [Fung and Helgeson
2017]. Additionally, federal programs may not permit accounting for co-benefits.
When evaluating potential solutions to achieve resilience goals, communities need tools that help evaluate
projects on their relative contribution to resilience goals, community benefits, and their financial merit.
There are several factors associated with this challenge: communities may not be aware of existing
economic decision-support tools that could meet their needs, current tools may not be compatible with
community management systems or meet a grant program’s requirements, or current tools may lack featuresneeded for full evaluation of resilience considerations.
6.2.3.

Financial Instruments to Finance and Monetize Benefits of Resilience Projects

Implementing resilience projects often requires new sources of financing, which may involve a combinationof public and private sources. Financial instruments that fund a wider range of community resilience
projects are needed. Communities indicate that both public and private financial instruments do notcurrently account for broader resilience benefits (i.e. indirect benefits and co-benefits), which can help
demonstrate a positive financial return for investors. The current financial instruments limit the ability ofcommunities to raise the necessary capital for these projects.
6.3. Gaps and Needs
6.3.1.

Increase Awareness and Coordination of Resilience Funding Resources

Most communities have limited resources for identifying potential funding sources. Websites and othersupport mechanisms that identify sources of funding and assist with the application process would bevaluable to communities. Consolidated guidance for resource opportunities that increase awareness offunding opportunities would benefit communities. One approach could be to:•

6.3.2.

Develop websites that maintain consolidated up-to-date listings of funding programs and sources,
and associated requirements, to inform and educate communities about funding opportunities.
Recognition of Resilience Benefits in Financial Products

Communities find it challenging to obtain private sector financing for funding resilience projects. The
benefits of resilience need to be characterized in ways that ‘make the business case’ for resilience
investments and that are recognized by the financial sector, including:•

6.3.3.

Engage with the financial sector to identify economic data and information needed to assess thevalue of resilience planning and implementation. This could include representatives of municipal
bond markets, insurance markets, and capital markets.
Economic Decision-Support Tools

Economic decision-support tools beyond direct costs and benefits will help communities to fully
characterize and prioritize resilience investments. The following steps will advance the quality of existing
tools:●

Identify the benefits of resilience planning and project implementation, including indirect benefits
as well as co-benefits (i.e., the resilience dividend), and develop standard methods for theirevaluation. A comprehensive list of the types of benefits associated with resilience, and how theyshould be evaluated, will improve support provided for community decision-making.

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Ensure compatibility with existing tools and benefit-cost analysis methods that are required bymany public and private funding programs.
Develop economic decision-support tools that are recognized by funding programs and financeinstitutions for use by communities. Economic decision-support tools should consider community
decision-support information needs before, immediately and after hazard events, be compatible
with common community project evaluation requirements, and be recognized by external funding
programs.
Incorporate all net benefits of resilience planning into economic decision-support tools forcommunity resilience. Tools are needed that can characterize the full range of potential benefits
that may accrue to a community during and after resilience projects are implemented withquantification of benefits and externalities beyond traditional avoided loss quantification, including
potential co-benefits accrued in the absence of a hazard event.

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7.

Communication with Stakeholders

Community resilience includes multiple social, economic, and physical systems across the geographic
bounds of a community. There are also a range of interests, values, and perspectives across communities.
Effectively communicating the risks and benefits associated with the likely outcomes of resilience plans,
strategies, and decisions to community leaders, residents, and businesses is critical to community
understanding and willingness to adopt and implement resilience strategies.
A community resilience plan is more likely to be implemented if it is embraced by the residents andstakeholders, endorsed by policy officials, and actionable for those who must implement the plan. Throughengagement and outreach, the resilience plan will evolve and take form, generate support amongcommunity leaders, and be understood by the general public.
7.1. Current Approaches
Formation of a representative community resilience planning team and frequent communication withstakeholders during resilience strategy development is key to building trust and incorporating community
input. A variety of communication methods should be used, including meetings, news and social media,
and websites. Visualization tools, from GIS maps to storyboards, can help provide compelling and effective
communication support, as described in Chapter 4. Best practices to aid community officials withstakeholder communication are discussed in NIST Guide Brief 14 [2019b].
According to best practices identified by practitioners and researchers [Bergstrom et al. 2012; Herefordshire
Council 2015], the benefits of community engagement—including engagement associated with projectplanning, infrastructure development, and resilience planning—are:• Increased legitimacy and support• Increased ownership and buy-in• More effective implementation of projects and plans resulting from local knowledge and input• Increased networks, communication, and trust among planners and community members• Reduced long-term costs
A review of best practices and research findings for risk communication and behavior by NOAA [2019a]
focuses on natural hazard events (i.e., tornado, severe wind, flood, tropical cyclone, tsunami, volcano andwildfire). A set of recommended practices are outlined: have an informed plan, speak to their interests not
yours, explain the risk, offer options for reducing risk, work with trusted sources and the public, test
messages or products, and use multiple ways to communicate. These recommended practices are thefoundation for a NOAA guideline [2019b] for natural hazard risk communication, which outlines a process
for developing a strategy to communicate risk and uncertainty to stakeholders.
7.1.1.

Community Resilience Risks and Benefits

Communicating risks requires the ability to convey the key findings, and unknowns or uncertainties
associated with its components: hazard, vulnerability, and consequences.
For instance, when communicating hazard information, many stakeholders do not understand theprobabilistic terminology used by researchers and professionals. For example, mean recurrence intervals(MRI) describe the average rate of occurrence for hazards, where a 100-year MRI refers to a flood eventthat occurs once every 100 years on average over a longer time period (e.g., approximately ten times overa thousand years). A 100-year MRI can also be described as having a one percent chance of occurring eachyear. Both of these measures convey the same event, but they may be interpreted differently.

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Examples of communication challenges for probabilistic hazard occurrence descriptions include:●●●

The average person does not understand what a 100-year flood event is or why it can occur more
frequently than once every 100 years.
When people hear about 500 or 1,000-year events, they tend to dismiss them because these are somuch greater than their own realm of experience or life span.
For certain natural hazards, the annual probabilities that are sufficiently small (or MRIs are
sufficiently large) that the risk may be considered negligible or acceptable.

Some hazards cannot be represented accurately with MRIs as there are insufficient data for mean recurrence
interval estimates or probability analysis. Additionally, hazard characterizations based solely uponstatistical analysis of historical hazard event data do not address or account for future changes in hazard
intensity or frequency due to climate change effects (e.g. sea level rise, temperature, precipitation, severe
storms, coastal flooding).
Analysis of vulnerabilities and consequences focuses on the damage to buildings and infrastructure systems,
and the loss of functionality for social and economic systems. Impacts to infrastructure may be assessed
through a combination of engineering analyses, historical records of damage and insurance payouts, andexpert judgement. Loss of functionality may be assessed through a combination of infrastructure impacts,
analysis of population dislocation and economic losses, historical records, and expert judgement. Where
information is not available, assumptions are made to complete the assessments.
Once the failures, losses, and injuries are estimated, the consequences to community functionality andrecovery may be estimated in terms of time, monetary impacts, and opportunity costs. Consequences may
be assessed through a combination of economic analysis, expert judgement, and historical records ofconsequences and recovery.
The ‘do nothing’ option provides a baseline to compare proposed resilience strategies or individual projects
for consequences. Communities and stakeholders may use different goals and metrics to guide thecomparison. Consistent benefit evaluation between alternative strategies is essential for comparison andpresentation purposes.
7.2. Issues in Practice7.2.1.

Community Resilience Strategies and Decisions

Community resilience strategies, which include goals, plans, and solutions for implementation, take time
to develop and require input from a range of stakeholders during the development process. There are several
issues that can impede acceptance and adoption of resilience strategies: community resilience strategies,
which include goals, plans, and solutions for implementation, take time to develop and require input froma range of stakeholders during the development process. There are several issues that can impede acceptanceand adoption of resilience strategies:●●●●

Lack of engagement of all stakeholders can lead to significant gaps in the plans, and loss of support.
Broad geographic distribution of interdependent community systems can make resilience strategies
and how they affect various systems and stakeholders challenging to convey.
Difficulty in communicating risks and benefits in terms of various stakeholder interests.
Insufficient support for the actions described in the resilience strategy when lack of stakeholder
engagement leads to missing issues the community wants to address.

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7.2.2.

Community Resilience Risks and Benefits

Effectively communicating risks and benefits to a range of community stakeholders requires presentationof complex information in a context that is meaningful and relevant to all stakeholders. Stakeholders include
residents, vulnerable populations, public and private businesses, institutions, nonprofits, and government
agencies.
Risk is often described with three components: probability of a hazard event (hazard), probability of anegative outcome (failure, loss, injury) for a given the hazard (vulnerability), and the consequences of thehazard and outcome (consequences). These components are often summarized as follows:
Risk = Hazard x Vulnerability x Consequences
While this conceptual description of risk is more easily understood by the public, the computation of riskby professionals can be complex, with each component of risk requiring separate analyses with estimatedor incomplete information. Interpreting and conveying risks from analyses of a single system can bechallenging. The challenge is amplified for community resilience when multiple physical, social, andeconomic systems are included.
Similar issues exist for communication of benefits related to a proposed strategy or individual project.
Resilience benefits can provide short- and long-term benefits. A more complete measure of benefits
includes direct, indirect, and co-benefits (see Appendix 1). However, methods and approaches to monetize
indirect and co-benefits are difficult to assess and can be a significant source of variability between
analyses.
7.3. Gaps and Needs
7.3.1.

Community Resilience Strategies and Decisions

The methods for community communication identified in Section 7.2.1 provide examples of current
practices, but a comprehensive evaluation of these methods is lacking. The following action would advancethe knowledge in this area:•

7.3.2.

Collect and disseminate best practices for communicating the elements of resilience strategies. Bestpractices and methods for community communication need to be applied, evaluated, and refinedwith a focus on effective communication with a broad range of stakeholders and community sizes.
Community Resilience Risks and Benefits

Presenting risk and its components in terms that can be better understood for a range of stakeholder contexts
is needed. As an example, the probability of hazard occurrence could be expressed in terms of a 30-year
mortgage, as shown in Table 7-1. Rather than presenting hazard information in terms of MRIs or an annual
probability of occurrence, the probability of hazard occurrence over a period of time may be moremeaningful to people. For instance, the risk of an event with an MRI of 30 years is 64% over that time
period, which may be more meaningful to home and business owners and financial institutions.
Similarly, methods to convey vulnerabilities and consequences of hazard events that convey the impacts toindividuals, businesses, and the community are needed.

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Table 7-1. Example of Ways to Communicate the Probability of Hazard Occurrence
MRI(years)
30
50
100
500
700
1,000
1,700
2,500

Annual Probability of
Occurrence
3.3%
2%
1%
0.2%
0.14%
0.1%
0.059%
0.040%

Probability of Occurrence over
30-Years
64%
45%
26%
5.8%
4.2%
3.0%
1.7%
1.2%

The following actions can improve communication of risks and benefits for community resilience planningand support:•••

Identify approaches to present risks and benefits in terms that can be understood by all stakeholders.
Improve methods for communicating hazard exposure, vulnerability, and consequences. Tested
approaches are needed for presenting vulnerabilities, risks, and losses associated with hazard
events, the anticipated recovery of community functions, and short- and long-term benefits for
proposed resilience strategies.
Develop methods to incorporate future projections of changes in hazard profile (e.g. intensity,
frequency) due to estimated impacts of climate change on sea level rise, temperature, precipitation,
severe storms, and coastal flooding.

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8.

Summary and Potential Next Steps

Community officials responsible for resilience planning are charged with a significant technical,
organizational, and administrative undertaking. Their efforts require collaboration across multiple
government departments and offices, and community stakeholders. They also need to lead technicallycomplex data collection, modeling, and analysis. Lack of guidance on how to identify and integrate thedata, information, and tools from a variety of disciplines remains a challenge to effective resilience planning
efforts.
The organizations that support resilience planning span a wide range of research organizations, government
agencies, private sector firms, non-governmental organizations, and communities. The October 2018
workshop on Data Needs for Resilience Planning and Decision-Making, hosted by NIST and the Center,brought together many of these stakeholders. The issues, challenges, and next steps identified by thisdiverse set of stakeholders provide insights into the status of the growing field and practice of resilienceplanning and informs future efforts.
Summary of Potential Next Steps for Collaboration Among Communities, Practitioners, andResearchers
1. Developing Community Resilience Indicators and Metrics: Communities establish resilience goals
to prioritize actions to address hazard risk and support resource allocation decisions. This would
ideally be accomplished through a rigorous assessment that uses validated indicators and metrics
to track progress toward meeting community resilience goals. Steps to advance the development ofresilience goals and metrics include:•

Development of a core set of indicators and metrics to assess the performance andfunctionality of social, economic, physical, and natural systems before and after hazard
events.

•Establishment of data requirements and sources for core indicators and metrics, including
spatial scales and temporal frequencies.

•

Development of methods to integrate and aggregate (or de-aggregate) multi-disciplinary
data for indicators and metrics.

2. Improving the Accessibility and Use of Community Resilience Data and Information: Analysis forcommunity resilience planning often starts with a community’s internal information resources andexpands to external information resources that need to be processed and adapted to a specificcommunity’s needs and circumstances. There are opportunities across sectors and organizations towork together to aid communities in these data and information efforts through:•Development of data standards, that include open data principles and policies, with theengagement of standard development organizations involved in resilience planning.

•

Establishment of data standards that address classification and metadata and technicalrequirements for data quality control and accessibility, based on the evaluation of
established data standards for community-level spatial scales and integration ofinterdisciplinary datasets.

•

Establishment of data management best practices that address user needs and compatibility
with common data tools and platforms used by communities, such as GIS analysis tools.

•

Development of data curation and dissemination models through collaboration oforganizations and sectors involved in the development, dissemination, and use of data andinformation sources.

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3. Increasing the Utility and Dissemination of Community Resilience Tools: Planning tools allow
communities to analyze potential hazard exposure, characterize built environment vulnerabilities,
translate these vulnerabilities to associated social functions, and effectively communicate risks andassociated resilience goals with constituents and stakeholders. While there are a number of analysis
and visualization tools publicly available, steps to increase the utility of existing and futurecommunity resilience tools include:•

Development of best practices and standards for selecting hazard scenarios for community
resilience analyses, including hazards not currently addressed by standards.

•

Validation of tools that address immediate damage and losses for hazard events, thesubsequent recovery of community systems, and the ability to compare alternative
resilience project impacts.

•

Development of methods to communicate and visually depict analysis results, such as
dependencies, vulnerabilities, risks and benefits, and indicators and metrics over space andtime for community systems.

•

Development of platforms and opportunities to increase community-to-community sharing
and learning to help both communities and developers of data and tools regularly interact
and test the development of tools and provide feedback to developers.

4. Advancing the Practice of Community Resilience Planning: While the value of community
resilience planning continues to grow in terms of awareness and recognition, it remains a relatively
new concept that involves multiple disciplines and government departments. Planning approaches
often vary from community-to-community and there is a lack of standardization across theseapproaches and methods. The following steps will advance the practice of community resilienceplanning:••

Development of a standard approach to community resilience planning, including the useof a core set of indicators and metrics and risk-consistent measures for evaluating
investment strategies that enhance community resilience.
Formalization of resilience planning education opportunities to help professionals fromvarious disciplines to work with the range of disciplines, stakeholders, and issues requiredfor community resilience planning.

5. Advancing Economic Decision-Support Tools: Implementation of resilience plans requires
communities to identify, organize, and acquire public and private sector funding. Identification ofthese funding resources and understanding the respective application and requirements of each is a
resource- and time-intensive administrative undertaking. Further, in support of plan
implementation, communities seek economic decision-support tools that allow them to fully
account for the cost and the full range of potential benefits that may accrue to a community during
and after resilience projects are implemented. These needs could be addressed through efforts suchas:•Development of a publicly available compendium of funding programs and sources, andassociated requirements, to inform and educate communities about funding opportunities.

•

Determination of the benefits of resilience planning and project implementation, including
indirect benefits as well as co-benefits (i.e., the resilience dividend) that result in thedevelopment of standard methods for their evaluation.

•

Development of economic decision support tools that are recognized by funding programs
and finance institutions for use by communities that incorporate all net benefits ofresilience planning.

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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6. Supporting Community Stakeholder Communication and Engagement: Community resilienceplanning involves engagement and input from community members and developing a
representative planning team for these various stakeholder groups. The involvement and input ofcommunity members through the process of developing a resilience plan needs to be representativeof community values and objectives. To aid community officials, needed advancements incommunication methods include:•

Identification of best practices for communicating resilience strategies and anticipatedoutcomes that address the broad range of stakeholders for a range of community sizes.

•

Development of approaches to present risks and benefits in terms that can be understoodby all stakeholders. This would include improving methods for communicating hazard
exposure (including future projections in changes of hazard profile due to impacts ofclimate change), vulnerability, and consequences.

•

Develop methods to incorporate future projections of changes in hazard profile (e.g.
intensity, frequency) due to estimated impacts of climate change on sea level rise,temperature, precipitation, severe storms, and coastal flooding.

Conclusion
As communities across the nation conduct resilience planning efforts and implement projects that reduce
their vulnerabilities to hazard events, their needs for data, information and tools are becoming clearer. The
following principles continue to apply to all the topics addressed in this report:•

Collaborate broadly across sectors and disciplines. Successful implementation of resilienceplanning lies within no single sector or discipline. All sectors have a role and various
responsibilities for supporting the planning and subsequent projects within community resilienceplans. Addressing many of the issues identified in this report and the success of future community
resilience efforts is enhanced when many sectors collaborate to achieve common objectives andgoals.

•

Focus on community end-users. As new data, information, and tool resources are developed, theperspective of the various end-users should continually be considered through community
engagement practices. Various end-user goals, resources, and skill sets can inform the ultimate
curation, dissemination, and future successful use of these important uses. Further, end-user needs
serve as inspiration for future technical and research efforts to enhance community research.

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1240

Glossary of Acronyms
100RC

100 Resilient Cities

ACS

American Community Survey

APA

American Planning Association

BCR

Benefit-cost ratio

BLS

Bureau of Labor Statistics

BRIC

Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities

BRIC

Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program

CART

Citizens Advisory Recovery TeamCASPER

Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response

CDBG

Community Development Block Grant

CDBG-DR

Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery

CDC

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

CPT

Collaborative Planning Team

CRAFT

Community Resilience Assessment Framework and Tools

DHS

Department of Homeland Security

DRRA

Disaster Recovery Reform Act

EDA

Economic Development Administration

EDGe$

Economic Decision Guide Software

EPA

Environmental Protection Agency

FEMA

Federal Emergency Management Agency

FFE

First floor elevation

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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FIMA

Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration

FIRMs

Flood Insurance Rate Maps

GIS

Geographic Information Systems

HGMP

Hazard Mitigation Grant Program

HMP

Hazard Mitigation Plan

HUD

Department of Housing and Urban Development

HVA

Health Vulnerability Analysis

HVAC

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning

ICMA

International City/County Management Association

IN-COREInterconnected Networked Community Resilience Modeling Environment

MRI

Mean recurrence interval

NACo

National Association of Counties

NADO

National Association of Development Organizations

NARC

National Association of Regional Councils

NDRF

National Disaster Recovery Framework

NETS

National Establishment Time Series database

NFIRS

National Fire Incident Reporting System

NIST

National Institute of Standards and Technology

NLC

National League of Cities

NMIS

National Mitigation Investment Strategy

NOAA

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NPG

National Preparedness Goal

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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ORP

Oregon Resilience Plan

PDM

Pre-Disaster Mitigation

RDVM

Resilience Dividend Valuation Model

RRAP

Regional Resilience Assessment Program

SHELDUS

Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States

STAPLEE
THIRA

Social, Technical, Administrative, Political, Legal, Economic,
Environmental
Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment

TRI

Toxic Release Inventory

USACE

US Army Corps of Engineers

USGS

US Geological Survey

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Research Program [USGRP 2019]. U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. https://toolkit.climate.gov/. Viewed
August 2019.
van de Lindt, J.W., Ellingwood, B.R., McAllister, T.P., Gardoni, P., and Cox, D. [2018]. Progress andchallenges in modeling community resilience: an update on the center for risk-based community resilienceplanning, 6th International Symposium on Reliability Engineering and Risk Management, NUS, Singapore,May 31- June 1, 2018.
van de Lindt, J.W., Ellingwood, B.R., Cutler, H., Gardoni, P., Lee, J-S, Cox, D.T., Peacock, W.G.. [2019].
The Structure of the Interconnected Networked Community Resilience Modeling Environment (IN-CORE),
Proc of the 2nd International Conference on Natural Hazards & Infrastructure, 23-26 June 2019, Chania,
Greece.

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Appendix 1. Definitions
Term

Definition

Baseline

A value that represents normal levels of functionality or services,established at a discrete point in time with historical data, against whichchanges in performance can be evaluated [Cutter and Derakhshan 2019].

Benefits

Positive returns realized from resilience planning. Benefits include direct,
indirect, and co-benefits. Benefits encompasses economic and noneconomic (i.e., no market price) positive effects from resilience planning.
•••

Direct benefits account for positive returns that are intended outcomesof a resilience project or strategy.
Indirect benefits account for additional positive returns that are not a
direct outcome but are nonetheless realized due to a resilience projector strategy.
Co-benefits account for the positive returns from a resilience projector strategy that improve community function and value even when ahazard event has not occurred.

Buildings

Individual structures with a roof and walls, including equipment andcontents, that house people and support social institutions.

Built Environment

All buildings and infrastructure systems that are designed and constructedto support services and functions.

Clusters

A set of buildings and supporting infrastructure systems that serve acommon community function, such as housing, healthcare, retail, etc.
Clusters may be geographically distributed across a community,

Community

In the National Preparedness Goal (NPG), the term “community” refers togroups with common goals, values, or purposes (e.g., local businesses,
neighborhood groups).
In the NIST Community Resilience Planning Guide, the term“community” refers to a place designated by geographical boundaries thatfunctions under the jurisdiction of a governance structure, such as a town,
city, or county. It is within these places that people live, work, play, build
their futures, and develop goals and plans.

Community
Resilience

The ability of a community to prepare for anticipated hazards, adapt tochanging conditions, and withstand and recover rapidly from disruptions[PPD-21, 2013].

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Term

Definition

Composite indicator

A mathematical aggregation of multiple indicators to assess a multidimensional concept (e.g., community healthcare) that cannot be captured
by a single indicator (https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=6278)(Sasiana and Tarantola 2002).

Critical Facilities

Buildings that support functions and services related to life safety and areintended to remain operational during and immediately after hazard
events. These facilities are sometimes referred to as essential buildings.

Critical Infrastructure“Systems and assets, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the UnitedStates that the incapacity or destruction of such systems and assets would
have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security,
national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters”[PPD-21, 2013].

Data

Objective, quantitative facts (e.g., length, time, quantity) and subjective,
qualitative non-numerical observations (e.g., interviews). Note that
qualitative data can be quantified (e.g., ratings on a scale of 1 to 10).

Dependency

The reliance of physical and/or social systems on other physical and/or
social systems to function or provide services.

DisasterA serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society
causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses
which exceed the ability of the affected community or society to copeusing its own resources [National Science and Technology Council, 2005].

HazardA potential threat or an incident, natural or human-caused, that warrants
action to protect life, property, the environment, and public health orsafety, and to minimize disruptions of government, social, or economic
activities [PPD-21 2013].

Indicator

Parameter based on one or more quantitative or qualitative measures thatwhen measured over time can point out the direction of change(Freudenberg 2003: 7).

Information

Data that has been processed and/or organized into an understandable andusable format.

Infrastructure System

Physical networks, systems, and structures that make up transportation,energy, communications, water and wastewater, and other systems thatprovide services for people and social institutions.

MeasureObserved, quantitative data at a single point in time.

MetricA standard of measurement for performance or progress (Black et al.
2009). A metric may be based on a composite indicator that has
demonstrated sensitivity to support decision-making for its intended
application.

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Term

Definition

Mitigation

Activities and actions taken to reduce loss of life and property by lessening
the impact of hazard events.

Resilience“The ability to adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly
recover from disruption due to emergencies” [PPD-8, 2011].
“The ability to prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and towithstand and recover rapidly from disruptions. Resilience includes theability to withstand and recover from deliberate attacks, accidents, or
naturally occurring threats or incidents” [PPD-21, 2013].

Risk

Possibility of loss or injury due to the impact of a hazard event on a system,
given its condition or vulnerability.

Shelter-in-place

Safely remaining in a building, e.g., a residence, during or after a hazard
event.

Social Institutions

Formalized delivery of services for the welfare of society, including
healthcare, education, governance, banking, business, etc.

TargetA value for future levels of functionality or services, which specifychanges to baseline values, against which changes in performance can beevaluated.

Tools

Instruments, models, or analysis methods that are used to collect, process,and organize data into useful information, or to analyze relationships
between data sets.

Vulnerable
populations

Groups of individuals within a community whose needs may go unmet
before or after a disaster event, including the elderly, people living inpoverty, racial and ethnic minority groups, people with disabilities, andthose suffering from chronic illness. Additional social vulnerabilities can
include renters, students, single-parent families, small business owners,
culturally diverse groups, and historic neighborhoods.

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Appendix 2. Examples of Data Sources Discussed in Workshop
National Data Sources•

Center for Disease Control (CDC) Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response(CASPER, https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hsb/disaster/casper/default.htm): household information for
rapid needs assessment•

CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI, https://svi.cdc.gov/): population, household, transportation
data•

Census Bureau, Decennial Census (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennialcensus/data.html) and American Community Survey (ACS, https://www.census.gov/programssurveys/acs): population and household data•

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) empower (https://empowermap.hhs.gov/):
location of Medicare beneficiaries with electrically powered medical equipment•

Environmental
Protection
Agency(EPA)
Toxic
ReleaseInventory(TRI,
https://www.epa.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program): toxic chemical releases and pollution
prevention activities reported by industrial and federal facilities•

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Flood Map Service Center(https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home): official public source for flood hazard information producedin support of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)•

FEMA NFIP insured properties (https://www.fema.gov/policy-claim-statistics-flood-insurance):
current and historical NFIP policy and claims statistics, including information about significant
historical NFIP flooding events•

FEMA NFIP Community Rating System (CRS, https://www.fema.gov/national-flood-insuranceprogram-community-rating-system): fact sheets, contact information, a national map ofparticipating communities, details about how community discounts are calculated, and otherinformation about the Community Rating System•

National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS, https://www.nfirs.fema.gov/): reports by US fire
departments on fires and other incidents•

National Land Cover Database (NLCD, https://www.mrlc.gov/): land cover, impervious surface,and shrubland data•

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Change Analysis Program (CCAP, https://coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/lca.html): coastal land cover and land cover change
information•

Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUSTM,
https://cemhs.asu.edu/sheldus): county level hazard data set for the US for historic events andassociated losses from 1960 to present [Arizona State University 2018].

Other Data Sources
Local data:•

Building age as proxy for building code and expected performance•

Status of building retrofits•

Tax assessor information

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Number of dwelling units•

Construction type•Age of construction•

First floor elevation (FFE)•

Building code governing construction•

Location of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and other mechanical,
electrical, and plumbing systems•

Assessed value of structure•

Major modifications•

Sales tax data as a proxy for social equity

Desired Data•

Business continuity and supply chain•

FEMA National Risk Index (available 2020)•

Financial health and resource access (insurance, bonds, etc.)•

Hazard risks and impacts for local use by communication•

Housing damage impacts on demographics•

Infrastructure dependencies•

Infrastructure performance – public and private systems•

Insurance coverage•

Insurance loss data•

Physical asset condition and performance assessment•

Public health event impacts•

Shelter capacity•

Spatial assessment of physical infrastructure•

Storm surge and land loss over time•

Vegetation data for wildfire•

Vulnerable populations•

Vulnerability of social/economic community systems

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Appendix 3. Examples of Current Publicly Available Community Resilience Tools
There are many tools and guidance documents that are publicly available for use in resilience planning. A
sampling of tools and guidance documents includes:●

Guidance documents▪ FEMA Social, Technical, Administrative, Political, Legal, Economic, Environmental(STAPLEE) criteria worksheet – mitigation plan implementation [FEMA 2013b]▪ FEMA Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for Local Governments [FEMA 2017]▪ FEMA Plan Integration: Linking Local Planning Efforts [FEMA 2015](https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1440522008134ddb097cc285bf741986b48fdcef31c6e/R3_Plan_Integration_0812_508.pdf)
▪ EPA
Flood
Resilience
Checklist
[EPA
2014]
(https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-07/documents/flood-resiliencechecklist.pdf)▪ EPA
Regional
Resilience
Toolkit[EPA
2019](https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/regional-resilience-toolkit)▪ National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF) [FEMA 2011]▪ NIST Community Resilience Planning Guide [NIST 2016a and b]▪ NIST Economic Decision Guide [NIST 2015]▪ New York City Climate Resilience Design Guidelines [NYC 2019]▪ Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities Framework and city Index [Rockefeller 2014; Rockefeller
2016]▪ Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (THIRA) [FEMA 2013a]●

Analysis tools▪ Communities Advancing Resilience Toolkit (CART) [TDC 2012]▪ Community Resilience Assessment Framework and Tools (CRAFT) [IBTS 2017]▪ FEMA’s Hazus [FEMA 2018a]▪ Hazard Mapso FEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) [FEMA 2018d]o US Geological Survey (USGS) earthquake probability maps [USGS 2018]
o Urban-Wildfire interface zones or maps [Martinuzzi et al. 2015]o National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane storm surgemap [NOAA NHC 2018]▪ Kaiser Permanente Health Vulnerability Analysis (HVA) [California Hospital Association
2018]▪ MAEViz, Mid-America Earthquake Center Seismic Loss Assessment System [MAECenter 2013]▪ NIST Economic Decision Guide Software (EDGe$) [NIST 2018b]▪ NOAA Sea Level Rise Viewer [NOAA Office of Coastal Management 2017]▪ Spatial Hazard Events & Losses database for US (SHELDUS) [Arizona State University
2018]▪ Texas A&M/DHS Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence Plan Integration Scorecard[Texas A&M University 2017]▪ US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) sea-level change curve calculator [USACE 2017]●

Tool resource collection examples▪ 100 Resilient Cities Tools [Rockefeller 2019c] (http://www.100resilientcities.org/tools/)▪ Resilience Shift Toolbox [RS 2019] (https://www.resilienceshift.org/tools)▪ Naturally
ResilientCommunities
[NRC
2019]
(http://nrcsolutions.org/strategies/#solutions)54

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▪
▪
▪
▪
▪

Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Resilience Planning
Resources[HUD
2019b](https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/communityresilience/community-resilience-planning-resources/#tools-and-assessments)
State of California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research Adaptation Clearinghouse[CAOPR 2019] (https://resilientca.org/search/?types=11#resources)
Climate
Adaptation
Knowledge
Exchange[Ecoadapt
2019](https://www.cakex.org/resources/type/tool)
PartnershipforPreparedness
andResilience
[PREP
2019]
(https://www.prepdata.org/resources)
U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit [USGCRP 2019] (https://toolkit.climate.gov/)

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Data, Information, and Tools Needed for Community Resilience Planning and Decision-Making______________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Appendix 4. Examples of Funding Programs
The following resources for funding programs and support were noted by workshop participants, NIST, and the CoE.
Additional disaster recovery funding resources are listed at https://www.fema.gov/media-librarydata/1474548130660-db3c22abcc037416428fe7db69d45926/FundingResources.pdf•

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
o

•

•

•

•

Regional Resilience Assessment Program (RRAP) https://www.dhs.gov/cisa/regionalresiliency-assessment-program

Department of Transportation (DOT)oFederal Highway Administration – Federal Aid Highway Emergency Relief Program
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/erelief.cfm

oFederal Transit Administration – Public Transportation Emergency Relief Program
https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grant-programs/emergency-relief-program

Economic Development Agency (EDA)oComprehensive Economic Strategy Development (CEDS) (also eligible for post-event)
https://eda.gov/ceds/oEconomic Adjustment Assistance Grant (also eligible for post-event)
https://www.eda.gov/pdf/about/Economic-Adjustment-Assistance-Program-1-Pager.pdf

oPublic Works Program (also eligible for post-event)
https://www.eda.gov/pdf/about/Public-Works-Program-1-Pager.pdf

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)oClean Water State Revolving Funds (also eligible for post-event)
https://www.epa.gov/cwsrfoWater Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act Programs https://www.epa.gov/wifia

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)o

Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program https://www.fema.gov/pre-disaster-mitigationgrant-programoFire Management Assistance Grants https://www.fema.gov/fire-management-assistancegrant-programo

Flood Mitigation Assistance Grants https://www.fema.gov/flood-mitigation-assistancegrant-programoIndividual Assistance. (https://www.fema.gov/individual-disaster-assistance)oPublic Assistance. (https://www.fema.gov/public-assistance-local-state-tribal-and-nonprofit)oHazard Mitigation Grant Program (HGMP). https://www.fema.gov/hazard-mitigationgrant-programoDisaster Unemployment Assistance https://www.fema.gov/medialibrary/assets/documents/24418

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•

•

•

•

o

Community Disaster Loan Program https://www.fema.gov/medialibrary/assets/documents/176527

oCora Brown Fund https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/24409

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)oCoastal Zone Management Program (also eligible for post-event, not tied to specificdisaster) https://coast.noaa.gov/czm/about/oNational Coastal Resilience Fund (also eligible for post-event, not tied to specificdisaster) https://www.nfwf.org/coastalresilience/Pages/home.aspx

Small Business Administration (SBA)oDisaster Assistance Loans (https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/disaster-assistance)oEconomic Injury Disaster Loans for Business
https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/Information/EIDLLoansoPhysical Disaster Loans for Business
https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/Information/BusinessPhysicalLoansoHome and personal Property Disaster Loans
https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/Information/HomePersonalPropertyLoans

US Department of Agriculture (USDA)oForest Service – Volunteer Fire Assistancehttps://www.fs.usda.gov/naspf/topics/fire/volunteer-fire-assistanceo

Forest Service - Wildland Fire Management Assistancehttps://www.fs.usda.gov/naspf/featured-projects/2017/wildland-fire-managementvolunteer-fire-assistance-grants-help-ruraloFarm Service Agency - Emergency Conservation Program
https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/emergencyconservation/indexoFarm Service Agency - Emergency Forest Restoration Program
https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/disaster-assistance-program/emergencyforest-restoration/oFarm Service Agency - Emergency Farm Loans https://www.fsa.usda.gov/programsand-services/farm-loan-programs/emergency-farm-loans/indexoNatural Resources Conservation Service - Emergency Watershed Protection Program
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/programs/landscape/ewpp/

US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)oCommunity Development Block Grant
https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/comm_planning/communitydevelopment/programsoCommunity Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR).
https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/DR-H-Funding-Guide-RecoveryResources.pdf

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